Blind Pretence
by Wraithlike
Summary: The three times Matt felt fear. The first time in a long while Mello acted like a human. Matt's first cigarette; Mello's rebellious days. Some scars. A dodgy hair cut. Banter among friends, and a camaraderie to outlast many, many insults. Oneshot.


**Notes below. Some swearing.  
But it's epic. You should read it. ;)**

oOo

Blind Pretence

oOo

'Well?'

No one else would be able to detect the hidden frustration and fear in his voice. No one but Matt.

His face sobered completely, and he bowed his head, red hair swinging in front of his eyes to hide the tell-tale gleam.

'I'm so sorry. We weren't able to save the baby.'

'Oh, shut _up_, Matt, and untie the fucking bandage.'

'Temper, temper,' the youth said, vaguely, clamping the cigarette between his lips and using both gloved hands to pull the knot out of the thick surgical bandage towards the nape of Mello's neck. His fingers were being strangely clumsy, he realised. Odd. He had nimble fingers, thanks to a good fifteen years of intensive gaming. Granted, he could hardly see anything any more, but his fingers didn't need to be told twice to act. It was a fair exchange, in his opinion.

_Tug. Tug. _

'You're pulling my hair.'

'Get a hair-cut, then, you hippy.'

'Fuck you.'

What kind of pirate knot was this? Matt was positive he had tied it himself. But why the hell was it posing such a challenge? Maybe it was the gloves. They were rather industrial for the task, but somehow taking them off would make the whole thing into too much of a ceremony … too serious.

But then again, they both knew exactly what this would mean. Was there really any point in pretending otherwise? In keeping up this pointless pretence?

But somehow, Matt still kept up the ridiculous charade, and almost broke his fingers in the stiff leather just to keep pretending.

_Swish. _

Finally! The fraying end pulled through, and the two ends slipped from Matt's fingers. He scrabbled for them frantically for a moment, and Mello winced.

'Ow. Skin.'

'Sorry.'

For once, neither bothered with the bantering insults that were such an integral part of their friendship.

Pretence was everything, but sometimes even that failed.

Matt paused for a moment, his breath strangely hitched in his throat. Nerves? Was that it? He couldn't think of the last time that such a sensation had caught him.

Actually, he could. He started unwinding, uncharacteristically gentle. He hoped Mello would appreciate it.

He could remember. The last time was when five years had past, and his phone rang, out of the blue. The phone with the number he had kept since that day in Wammy's, since Mello left. The only way anyone could find him. Anyone being Mello.

-

'Matt.'

Elation. Surprise. A rising joy.

'Mello! Wow, I –'

Mello interrupted him, reeling off an address that Matt hastened to jot down.

'Um, do you want me to –'

'Matt, come get me. I think I'm bleeding to death. Hurry.'

And there it was. The choking, close-throated sensation. As if he was trying to swallow marbles. It was Mello's voice that had done it that time. Groggy, pained … and that strange undercurrent … _**fear.**_

Mello didn't fear. He never thought of himself long enough to fear. Mello might say that Matt only thought of life as a game, but he had the wrong person, there. All of this was just a game to Mello, with only one objective; win at all costs.

Fear was for losers. Something Mello never was, and never had been. Never would be, either.

But it was in his voice that day. Sure as eggs is eggs.

Matt hooked the bandage over Mello's ear, twisting another layer off. Mello's one visible eye was fixed on a point on the opposite wall, his breathing regular. Determined would be a good way to describe his expression. Something in it swelled a flower of pity in Matt's ribcage to bloom.

_Oh, God, Mello. This is one thing even you can't control._

And there it was again; this strange fear in him. Why was he afraid? This was Mello's problem. Nothing to do with him. It's not as if Mello had ever been a permanent fixture in his life.

Maybe as permanent as anything, though. Matt's life was a pretty hard place to get a grip on.

And worse still was the fact that he was not betraying this fear in look or motion. He kept twisting with the same languid air, the gloved hands unfurling the material at a steady, relaxing rhythm, belying the constriction in his throat. _Oh, God, don't let him be blind …_

The feeling had happened three times. Once, the phone call. Next … probably when he arrived on the scene.

Matt snipped the bandage, and tossed it away, before he began gently peeling the last one off, stubbing his cigarette underfoot, much to Mello's disapproval.

-

Matt had slammed the car door closed. He had taken the black one, the Lamborghini Reventen … he didn't know why, to this day. Maybe because it was the fastest in his fleet. Maybe because he hoped the black would be ubiquitous enough to pass by without too many second glances. Maybe he wanted to impress Mello, to say, _look, see? I can do just fine without you too. _

He didn't know why.

He had slammed the door closed, and felt sick. His hands were shaking, and he would have killed for a cigarette, but even the nicotine wouldn't have soothed his nerves now.

_Where, where, where …_

Where was he? Mello had directed him to a busy street, full of abandoned cars, and shocked people. As he strode past a woman, who was crying, he heard her say, 'But who could do that? All of those people, dead? What kind of monster could –'

And it was only then that Matt saw the building. Or rather, the absence where the building should have been. Matt realised as the thought formed that he had passed a huge tangle of cop-cars, fire brigades and ambulances on his way. He had been so preoccupied that he'd hardly noticed them.

He skidded to a halt, and stared. And stared.

_Sweet Jesus, Mello. What the fuck did you do?_

No one passing by took any notice of the red headed man in the stripes and goggles staring blankly at the site. No one noticed him starting to shiver. No one saw, because no one wanted to.

_I think I'm bleeding to death. Hurry. _

Matt snapped out of it, cast wildly about himself, before picking a direction and running.

When he finally found Mello, (in an alley. Dark. Secluded. Utterly silent, without even whimpers of pain) he didn't know what to do. He saw his silhouette, a figure sitting with his back against the wall, and his head forward, clasped in his hands.

He had to stand for a moment. Just stand. Just watch.

And then he ran. But the fear ran with him, tight and hard in his throat. He didn't think it was going anywhere for a long time.

Matt slid the layer off. The bandage was gone now, revealing his face … and the eye patch. Matt took a moment to survey the damage, but he didn't feel horror. And he didn't think this was just his desensitization to violence, courtesy of all those years playing gruesome video games.

Mello's face was scarred almost beyond recognition. The entire left side was healing, but still a raw, raw red, as if it had been melted. Poor Mello. It must hurt like hell. He was still Mello, though. It wasn't like he was missing a limb or anything. Still … Mello had always been quite vain.

Mello watched Matt calculatingly.

'It's got character,' Matt said, choosing his words carefully. Mello's beady eyes saw right through him.

'I'm a mess, right?' he said, sounding as if he relished this, but at the same time sounding wistful. Matt didn't say anything, but his fingers hovered over the eyepatch. He looked into Mello's uncovered blue eye. The blonde haired man sighed.

'Just do it, Matt.'

Matt looked at the patch, and thought of the first time he had felt fear. It was the most real feeling he had ever had. Even when his parents died, when he had found himself utterly alone, his first kiss, first hangover, when he had played Mario for the first time … his first brush with fear was the most real feeling he had ever had. In Wammy's house. All those years ago.

-

'Mello?'

His room was empty. No one called out, 'What?' or 'Go away!', or 'This had better be worth my while!'

Matt knocked again, and waited. Nothing. Matt sighed. He was probably so caught up in Encyclopaedia Britannica that he couldn't even hear him. Turning the handle, Matt kicked the door open, and slouched inside. He had recently shot up a foot or so, and he was feeling lanky and awkward, and had taken to slouching around the place. Mello said it looked like he was pushing drugs.

'Mel-lo …' Matt called. His bed was empty. Hmm. Matt slouched to the bathroom. The door was slightly ajar.

'Mello?' he called again, before kicking it open. But Mello didn't come barrelling out to beat him up for an invasion of his privacy. The room was empty.

Matt paused, wrong-footed, and turned around.

Where was he?

And where was … everything?

The bedside table was empty, except for three heavy books and a glass. A pair of shoes was sitting beside the bed. The teddy that Mello kept hidden under the pillow – the only thing left from his parents, and something Mello was positive Matt knew nothing about – was gone, Matt's quick inspection informed him. And when he saw the crucifix that usually hung over the bed had disappeared, leaving nothing but a sun-bleached outline, that was when the panic hit and he had to sit down.

For a few moments, Matt couldn't understand.

Gone? Mello? Mello gone? No matter how he tried to say it, it still sounded wrong.

Mello didn't leave. Other kids left. Some were kicked out, with a swift, 'Sorry, no thanks' if they didn't make the cut. But that was other kids. Not Mello. Not Matt either, apparently, despite how hard he had tried as a kid. He didn't particularly enjoy being smart. He often thought it would be more fun to be stupid and have a chance to play his Game Boy without someone trying to lure him away to study Complex Systems. Did they know how nerdy they all were?

But here it was. An empty room. Devoid of the only person Matt could really call friend. Despite the fact that Mello had broken his arm last year. Fractured his skull, once. Stomped on his gaming hand, too … And crushed his X Box only last week.

Anyway.

Matt got up. For Christ's sake, he was panicking over nothing. Mello could be anywhere. His stuff … maybe he was changing rooms. Or something. Maybe Near had stolen his stuff. Unlikely, but possible.

Matt stood up from Mello's bed, and looked around, his gaze settling on the strangely bare desk. His notebook, gone. His favourite pen, gone. The snapshot of both of them, looking weirdly happy in each others company was gone too. Matt crouched down, feeling under the desk, until he reached the secret compartment where Mello hid all of his bars of chocolate, his fuses, his cigarettes and his notebook full of plans for Near's extermination.

Matt squinted in concentration, sighing as he cursed Mello's paranoia, keying in upside down the code that would unlock the cover. It was twelve digits long, and had taken five years of badgering to learn.

The lock clicked, and the resistance fell from Matt's touch. He shoved his hand inside and groped blindly around the small space, fingers sliding smoothly over the dust of many years, and the chips of chocolate. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing … but a slip of paper. Matt felt it, and yanked it out with such enthusiasm that it caught and tore slightly. He paused a moment, before withdrawing it gingerly and shaking it out.

_Matt_, it said, in Mello's meticulous, cramped hand.

_Time and tide wait for no man. Neither does death, apparently, and I don't intend to ever sit around waiting for it to find me. _

_L's dead. Kira killed him. L; unmovable, stoic L. L, whom I admired so. A hard blow._

Wow. He must be cut up. To actually admit a feeling rather than just explode? … Jesus. Poor L.

_However, the fact remains that Near and I have been named the new L. We were requested to work together. A team._

Matt snorted. Mello? Team? The word was a foreign concept to Mello. There was no 'I' in team, he said. Matt told him there _was_ a 'me' in it, though.

Thinking back, Matt realised that may have been the day that Mello had broken his arm.

He read on.

_Needless to say, I refused._

Oh, wow, shocker right there. '**Does not play well with others**' was the definition of Mello.

_Don't waste your time looking in the library, or the study for me, if you haven't already. I have already left, and I doubt I'll see you again. At least not for a long time._

The paper didn't feel real in Matt's hands. The vibrations from his heart-beats were shaking the paper slightly, and for a moment, he just sat on the floor with the sheet and stared at the paper moving gently with every beat of his heart.

_I don't know where I'll go. But I'll find somewhere. I'll survive, and I'll beat Near. I don't care what I have to do, what I have to sacrifice. I'll do it. I'm genuinely sorry that I had to leave like this. Without goodbye, or explanation, but I can't stay any longer. I have to sever all ties. Sorry, Matt. A new part of my life is starting. I have to enter into it wholeheartedly, without restraint._

_I hope we can meet as friends some time in the future. I hope we both live that long. _

_Look after yourself. And for Christ's sake, get rid of those stupid goggles. For your sake, Matt. Not mine._

_-Mello_

Finished in a hurry. Hasty, the 'o' smeared as if he had rubbed his hand over it in a great rush. Poof. Gone.

It was funny, Matt thought, staring at his best friend's swift spiky lettering, that Mello could make such a huge impact on the world around him, and still leave without a tangible trace in moments. Like he had blasted a crater into the surface of the earth, and the resulting absence glared at you as convincingly as he had.

So. This was what it was like. He had forgotten what it was to be lonely, in these years since he had found Mello. But now, the feeling that had tormented him for so many years was returning again, to take over this fragile shell. It was as if Mello had left, and taken most of Matt with him.

_No, _Matt, thought, suddenly fierce. _No._

The thought refused any more clarity than that, but still Matt fought through the stupor and pushed his hand into the crevice again, looking for something, anything that would explain. Nothing. But …

He pulled out a thin white cylinder, half orange with a funny smell. Ah, yes. One of the cigarettes Mello smoked to be rebellious. A fairly mild rebellion, given what Mello was undeniably capable of, but frowned upon to an unrealistic degree by Roger. Matt had never smoked before, but now seemed as good a time as any to start. Settling himself more comfortably, he stuck the cigarette into his mouth, and lit the end with a match that happened to be in his pocket.

And then he sat on the floor of his departed best friends room, smoking and thinking dreamily of the future for the better part of an hour. When he left the room, everyone noticed the change in him. The uncaring, dismissive, devil-may-care attitude that had replaced the fumbling, shy boy, hiding behind brash, extroverted Mello.

He wasn't Mail, from then on. He was only Matt.

He cut the patch away sharply, and pulled it from Mello's face. The blonde boy squinted painfully for a moment, one eye seeing all, one seeing nothing, and Matt watched the blue eyes dart blindly around the room, before he blinked for a good while, and squinted slower.

'Ah,' Mello sighed in relief, one eye focused, the other focusing. Well, that was good. He wasn't blind, then.

'You can see,' Matt said, unnecessarily, before realising just _how_ unnecessary that was, and pulling out another crushed cigarette from his pocket.

'Glory be,' he muttered around the familiar shape in his mouth, as he tried to light the shoddily packed tobacco.

_Well, there you go, Matt. All of that pointless reminiscence for absolutely nothing. _

'Oh,' Matt said, clamping his teeth around the cigarette and freeing his hands, 'You want to see, or what?'

He proffered the mirror he had swiped from Mello's room earlier, and watched engrossed, the play of emotions over Mello's face.

'Yes,' he said, at last, pulling the mirror from Matt's slack grasp and facing the new him for the first time.

His face was doing that super-composed thing, when it appeared that Near had taken over his mind and erased every emotion that made him Mello, different to everyone else. Blank. Nothing. Silence.

And then he put the mirror down, and stood up.

Matt watched him, the fear mutating to pity. To foreboding. Just changing into something else, and trying to dispel the terrible awkwardness of these long, transformative years to leave Matt and Mello, the genius delinquent friends rather than these strange, adult people, thrown together out of need and convenience.

'Well,' Mello said, adjusting his gloves, 'I guess I'd better start growing my fringe.'

And then he left. Walked through a different door, and closed it over. _Starting to make that a habit, _Matt thought, taking a satisfying drag of the cigarette.

With Mello, pretence was everything. But sometimes humanity was something too.

'Matt?' His voice called through the crack in the door. Matt supposed idly that he was brushing his hair over his face, or something.

'What?'

'I thought I told you to get rid of those goggles.'

'I thought I told you to stop being such a nagging bitch.'

'And since when do you smoke?'

'Since I decided to start! Why do you sound like my mom all of a sudden? Jesus! Worse, actually, you sound like Roger!'

'Fuck off.'

'Or _Near!_'

'Fuck _off!_'

Matt grinned, and settled back into the chair. Yeah, yeah, time, tide and death was great and all, but smart words and pointless rebellion could never have compared to having an actual friend, even if said friend was demanding, nagging, aggressive and utterly thankless.

'Hey, Mello?'

It was still pretty fun.

'What?'

Matt really had missed that boy.

'You still look like a girl.'

Matt chuckled, as Mello stormed towards him. Ah. It was good to be home.

xXx

**A/N: Aaaaaah, bless. Be glad that I stuck this ending on it, because the other one was just ridiculous. So depressing. Mattello isn't like that. Mattello is a kind of 'My life would suck without you, you piece of shit' kind of love. It's epic. It's guy love. Different to slash. ;)  
So. I'm fair spewing out the DN stuff at the moment, because I'm sick and I don't want to do projects ... :( Pity the poor sick girl and please review. If you liked it, my other fic Legac is about Mello but not a gay OC romance. It's got substance, I swear. ;) Please check it out, and please review!**

**- Wraithlike  
**


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